WE ADVENTISTS have taken a verse in the ninth chapter of Romans and made it almost peculiarly our own. I refer to verse 28, which reads: "For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth."
The ninth chapter of Romans begins with Paul's expressed sorrow that many of the Jews were outside of the family of God. His deep sorrow is expressed in the memorable words of verse 3: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Then follows a passage devoted to the humanly difficult argument that God chooses some men and rejects others, that His gifts are acts of mercy according to His own will and for His own inscrutable purposes. Yet God, maintains the apostle, is not unfaithful to any man: "It is not as though the word of God had failed" (verse 6, R.S.V.). It was the people who failed, not God and His word.
In verses 7 and 8 of chapter 9 the apostle begins his teaching on the spiritual descent of man: " 'Through Israel shall your descendants be named.' This means that it is not the children of flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants" (R.S.V.).
From this he proceeds to expound the doctrine of divine selection as between Jacob and Esau, Moses and Pharaoh, et cetera. "He has mercy upon whomever he wills," says the apostle (verse 18). Then, quoting the prophet Isaiah, he cries: " 'Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved' " (verse 27).
As if all this hard reasoning might be too much for his hearers, he then assures them: " 'For the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch' " (verse 28), or as we know it so well in the King James Version: "For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth."
The contextual setting, and certain linguistic considerations discussed in the S.D.A. Bible Commentary on this verse, make it clear that this promise regarding God's purpose and work (or word) in the earth is not in its primary sense written of His work only in the last days, or in the last generation. It is a clear declaration of the fact that when God sets His purposes in motion He unfailingly finishes them, and when He speaks, His word is bound to be accomplished. While we may think there is long delay in their fulfillment, He works surely and expeditiously, and in harmony with His just and redeeming purposes in every generation. This, of course, includes the last days and the last generation.
Ellicott's Commentary renders Romans 9:28 in part as follows: "For a sentence, accomplishing and abridging it, will the Lord execute upon the earth." In verse 27 Paul quotes Isaiah 10:22, which Agar Beet, in his commentary on Romans renders as follows: "Consumption is determined overflowing with righteousness. For consumption and a determined purpose the Lord Jehovah of armies is working out in the midst of all the earth." Compare Ephesians 3:11 on "the eternal purpose ["purpose of the ages," margin] which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (R.V.). The Revised Standard Version says: "The eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord."
If the termination of human history is to be accomplished by divine intervention, as we verily believe it is, then the church in the end of time has additional reason for the certainty that God will conclude His work righteously and expeditiously, as He has all through the years carried out His purposes. He will not allow evil to triumph in the earth, even when events suggest that it will. Ominous times are on us. Terrible conditions have assailed our world, and will continue to plague mankind.
The angel of mercy is folding her wings, ready to depart. Already the Lord's restraining power is being withdrawn from the earth, and Satan is seeking to stir up the various elements in the religious world, leaving men to place themselves under the training of the great deceiver, who works with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in the children of disobedience. Already the inhabitants of the earth are marshaling under the leading of the prince of darkness, and this is but the beginning of the end. The law of God is made void. We see and hear of confusion and perplexity, want and famine, earthquakes and floods; terrible outrages will be committed by men; passion, not reason, bears sway. The wrath of God is upon the inhabitants of the world, who are fast becoming as corrupt as were the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. . . . The Lord is soon to cut short His work and put an end to sin.—Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 49.
In 1 Corinthians 7:29, R.S.V., the apostle Paul uses the impressive sentence: "Brethren, the appointed time has grown very short." He uses this sentence as the basis of an appeal for godly living. He was sure that "the form of this world is passing away" (verse 31). The apostle believed that God would end the history of this sinful world by divine intervention, and when he says that "the time is short," it is clear that he expected God to "execute His sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch," regardless of any specific period. Everything God does is done with dispatch and with power, if only we could see the end from the beginning. Time seems long to us in this life, but it will appear to be relatively short when viewed from the viewpoint of eternity. Whatever God does is also done in righteousness, for it cannot be otherwise.
"Sinful man can find hope and righteousness only in God; and no human being is righteous any longer than he has faith in God, and maintains a vital connection with Him."—Testimonies to Ministers, p. 367.
In these days, when faith is tested to the uttermost, days when we can see quite well how much more severely faith will be tested in the near future, it is well for us to remember God's assurance that what He has promised to do with sin and sinners, with a rebellious world, for the remnant, or His church, which will be saved in His kingdom, will be done with dispatch and rigor and absolute righteousness. It is well for us to remember the part to be played by the church of Christ in the finishing of His work:
The work will be cut short in righteousness. The message of Christ's righteousness is to sound from one end of the earth to the other to prepare the way of the Lord. This is the glory of God, which closes the work of the third angel."—Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 19.
It is well for us also to remember that beautiful statement found in Prophets and Kings, page 725 so often quoted among us: "Clad in the armor of Christ's righteousness, the church is to enter upon her final conflict 'fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners,' she is to go forth into all the world, conquering and to conquer."
H. W. L.
